The Wall in the Mind – Revisited Stable Differences in the Political Cultures of Western and Eastern Germany

ABSTRACT

Do lasting differences in the political cultures of social subgroups call into question the legitimacy of democracy? This danger has been discussed for three decades now, always in the run up to German Unity Day, which marks the reunification of Germany in 1990. Is there still a ‘wall in people’s minds’, as postulated in the late 1990s? This article examines the question comparatively and over time: Do political cultures and their main political attitudes still differ between Western and Eastern Germany 30 years after reunification? And, if so, to what extent? Using an extended concept of political support, we analyse East–West differences by drawing on different data material from representative surveys. What we show that there is no deficit of legitimacy in Eastern Germany in terms of democracy. Nevertheless, there are consistent East–West differences in terms of people’s satisfaction with democracy as it is currently practised. These differences can be explained neither by existing socio-economic and socio-structural inequalities between Eastern and Western Germany, and nor by feelings of nostalgia for socialism. Rather, they are due to a combination of feelings of disadvantage, of a lack of recognition, and corresponding narratives that can draw on objective manifestations of inequality.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See Wagner (Arzheimer 2019, 98–100; Lengfeld and Dilger 2018, 190–195).

2 The extent to which this impression has also become entrenched in Germany can be seen from a survey conducted by the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen in 2019, in which 75 per cent of West Germans and 59 per cent of East Germans suspected that right-wing populist attitudes were more prevalent in the Eastern Germany (3 per cent Western Germany).

3 See Hebenstreit in this issue.

4 See Braun und Trüdinger in this issue.

5 In a survey conducted for the second German television broadcaster (ZDF) in June 2019, 49 per cent of East Germans and 30 per cent of West Germans said that there were still ‘Besser-Wessis’ (know-it-all West Germans) (Hübscher 2019).

6 Unfortunately, only the combination of data from Saxony was available for the corresponding items. Since alternative surveys have shown Saxony to differ little from the other Eastern German states in the results used, the results obtained for Saxony should be transferable to the other Eastern German states (see Backes and Kailitz 2020).

7 Only 20 per cent of West Germans have a similar opinion (our own calculation, LAS 2020).

8 See the articles of Kintz, of Veit and of Vogel in this issue.

9 See Hebenstreit and Wagner in this issue.

Additional information

Funding

This text was written as part of the BMBF-funded research project ‘Political Culture Change? Legitimacy of Democracy and Social Cohesion in Times of Increased Populism and Rising Islam Rejection’ at the Research Institute for Social Cohesion, project code: LEI_F_08; German Ministry for Education and Research; Ministery of Education and Research.

Notes on contributors

Susanne Pickel

Susanne Pickel is Chair of Comparative Politics at the University of Duisburg-Essen. She publishes on the topics of comparative politics, political science research methods and political culture. In recent years she has conducted research on understandings of democracy.

Gert Pickel

Gert Pickel is Chair of Religion and Church at Leipzig University. He works on the sociology of religion and political culture, social cohesion and prejudice. He has a long-standing interest in attitudes towards reunification and democracy in East–West comparison.